You can't get two basic, unless you have two labs. The basic discount is one-off. To get a similar discount after the first flow cells, you need to purchase 48 of them over the course of a year.

ONT claims that enhanced support is this amazing thing that everyone should use. If you're prepared to experiment and read lots of community posts, the enhanced support is probably not going to be worth it. If you want to get up and running as quickly as possible, it might be worth paying for the training.

The wash kit is for doing multiple runs on a single flow cell. Most people don't use it. There are carryover issues, and it's not common to have a situation where a wash is an improvement on a single barcoded run. I use the wash kit a bit for doing very low yield pilot studies (to work out the feasibility of the MinION for particular experiments).

You can't get two basic, unless you have two labs. The basic discount is one-off. To get a similar discount after the first flow cells, you need to purchase 48 of them over the course of a year.

ONT claims that enhanced support is this amazing thing that everyone should use. If you're prepared to experiment and read lots of community posts, the enhanced support is probably not going to be worth it. If you want to get up and running as quickly as possible, it might be worth paying for the training.

The wash kit is for doing multiple runs on a single flow cell. Most people don't use it. There are carryover issues, and it's not common to have a situation where a wash is an improvement on a single barcoded run. I use the wash kit a bit for doing very low yield pilot studies (to work out the feasibility of the MinION for particular experiments).

Thank you very much for your reply.

If I don't need the support, would it better to buy the Basic starter pack and then keep replenishing the sequencing kits and flowcells?

If I understand correctly, the only risk is that the Minion box can break and it appears that you can't order it by itself. How often does that happen? If it happens, then I have to buy the Enhanced pack?

My recommendation would be to get the basic starter pack and muddle your way through the sequencing process yourself (with help from the community forums). You'll fail more, learn more, and learn quicker that way.

The MinION is pretty robust. I carried it in my backpack for about a year, and that may have lead to the USB connector becoming a bit flaky, but I had a replacement (at no charge) about 2 weeks after I mentioned the issue to ONT support. I think a couple of other people had the same issue (with the first generation of MinIONs), and I haven't heard any further complaints about them for a couple of years.

Despite the flakiness, it was still good enough for me to be able to do a live sequencing demonstration during my TEDx talk last year. They've survived a flight to space and a trip to the bottom of the ocean; you don't really have anything to worry about with that (and broken ones get replaced quickly by ONT anyway).

My recommendation would be to get the basic starter pack and muddle your way through the sequencing process yourself (with help from the community forums). You'll fail more, learn more, and learn quicker that way.

The MinION is pretty robust. I carried it in my backpack for about a year, and that may have lead to the USB connector becoming a bit flaky, but I had a replacement (at no charge) about 2 weeks after I mentioned the issue to ONT support. I think a couple of other people had the same issue (with the first generation of MinIONs), and I haven't heard any further complaints about them for a couple of years.

Despite the flakiness, it was still good enough for me to be able to do a live sequencing demonstration during my TEDx talk last year. They've survived a flight to space and a trip to the bottom of the ocean; you don't really have anything to worry about with that (and broken ones get replaced quickly by ONT anyway).

Thank you very much for your reply. I will go with the Basic pack then.